He smiled, eyes sliding out of focus. "I was dreaming…" "Dreaming what?" "I don't remember… we were singing. In the rain…

Saturday, 23 June 2012

scapegoat

A skeleton recently rediscovered in London's Natural History Museum
provides the first evidence that a ritual sacrifice may have taken place
at Stonehenge. The remains, which show evidence of beheading, may also
throw light on the continuing importance of the megalithic monument,
built in three phases between 3050 and 1600 B.C. Radiocarbon analysis
indicates that the execution took place in the second half of the
seventh century A.D., shortly after the local Anglo-Saxon nobility had
converted to Christianity, says David Miles, chief archaeologist at
English Heritage, the public agency responsible for the monument's
upkeep.
"The beheading suggests that a political or ritual act was taking
place at Stonehenge at a time when the henge is thought to have been
abandoned and no longer considered a place of significance," says Miles.
"Stonehenge is relatively isolated, and a single execution is likely to
have been an important symbolic event."
Originally unearthed at Stonehenge in 1923, the male skeleton was
believed to have been destroyed during the German bombing of the Royal
College of Surgeons in World War II. While researching a book, however,
British archaeologist Mike Pitts, a former curator of Avebury Museum in
southwest England, found that many skeletons considered lost at the
Royal College had, in fact, survived.
When the remains were originally found, scientists assumed the man,
aged about 35, had died from natural causes. Recent examination,
however, revealed an ancient wound to one of his neck vertebrae,
suggesting that he had been beheaded. Pitts believes he may have been a
prominent figure, perhaps a king who transgressed the accepted
boundaries of religious or political behavior.
Three other skeletons have been discovered at Stonehenge, including
the well-preserved remains of a muscular man, aged 25-30, excavated in
1978. This man died from multiple arrow wounds in the third millennium
B.C., about the time the Stonehenge megaliths were erected.